Evolution of multicellularity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 15:40 (4414 days ago)

There is no known mechanism for the jump from the very successful unicellular organisms to multicellular. Bacteria have been around for 3.5 billion years or so, very successful at their level of development. Each cell is highly complex. Yet multicellularity developed. Gould's excuse was that it was the only direction complexity could take, bacteria were as simple as it could get.-Here is a study that finds a unicellular organism that will clump when the right diet of a certain bacterium is available. Not a really good reason for multicellarity to develop, but a novel way it might have started.-http://phys.org/news/2012-10-bacteria-evolution-multicellular-life.html-The problem is the Cambrian Explosion. Sheets or tubes of simple cells beforehand and total complexity with many cell types afterward.Nothing stepwise.